Father Feeds Flock!!!

My camera was running low on battery,  so just a couple of pics. I stole the idea for this meal from  "Diners, Drive-ins & Dives". Schnitzel on Spätzle. Schnitzel is a term in Germany, that us southern folks like to call chicken fried. They both mean some kind of meat that is breaded and fried. Spätzle is a small noodle that you shove through a colander, to form little nuggets. I got 3 chicken breasts and pounded them thin with the back of my ladle.  I almost  bought a meat tenderizing hammer, but they wanted $14.   My ladle did the trick just fine.   My dredging station was flour/eggs/panko bread crumbs in that order. Then you fry these things until they are  golden brown and crispy. The Spätzle is basically normal pasta dough, but you push it thru a colander or slotted spoon held over a pot of boiling water.  The dough drops off in these little nuggets, and you  boil them for just a few minutes.  Then into a saucepan with butter, lemon and chives to give  them a little

I'm trying to keep our meals varied and balanced, so tonight I chose veggie stir fry. Showcased on our brand new cutting board are mushy-rooms, scallions, garlic,  ginger, matchsticks carrots,  asparagus and snap peas. I added some oyster sauce, sesame oil & soy sauce to  the stir fry, and I plated it with brown rice. Quick, simple and delicious!!! 父亲喂养他的羊群 ("The father has fed his flock" in Chinese)

I've already blogged about this meal so I wont bore you, but I made Jamie Oliver's, from scratch, pizza recipe (dough and sauce) again tonight. So I could make a blog entry I had Dutchie take this video.  We did it twice for the obvious fact that I wanted close ups....We DO own a video production company, in case you forgot. This is just me tossing the dough and not creating the whole pizza. Let me know what you think of the video.  Is it better than photos? Dang the pizzas were good. Made one pepperoni (turkey pepperoni), one cheese and garlic (by far the best one) and the third was half cheese and half turkey pepp!

Cornish game hens started the creative for this meal.  I was going to pair it with my famous baked corn and sour cream casserole, but as I was looking at the recipe book and I noticed a recipe for corn souffle.  Changed my mind since I have seen the recipe MANY times, but never paid it any mind.   It caught my eye.  Twice baked taters were the starch/carb for the meal. The game hen was cooked with a shallot/parsley/butter tucked up under the skin. This both crisped up the skin and made the meat very juicy and tender. The corn souffle was very interesting.  It did not rise like a typical souffle, but it  did have the familiar taste, but with savory corn. I halved the hens and served 1/2 to everyone (yea! leftovers), one twice baked and scoop of awesomeness, and my plate was ready to empty! I just started 2 large, major video projects, so I'm not sure how often I will be able to blog for the next month or so. I know I will squeeze in a few, cause we still are going to eat every day, 

I carefully choose flavors to create a marinade for my baked wings (first way), set up this photo, combined them perfectly in a bowl.  I went to add the last ingredient, and right at the very last instant, I thought...you know, I've had this for a LONG time.  I wonder when it expires?  4 months ago!!! Hence the red X.  My wife is VERY particular when it comes to food expiration dates.   By the way...How can they possibly know the EXACT date that it will spoil and no longer be edible?????? These wings got baked in the oven with this orient inspired marinade. Corn starch and French's fried onion battered wings (2nd way) were up next.  The corn starch puts such a nice crisp on anything fried, so I mixed some in with some flour.  flour/egg&milk/fried onion was the dredge order.  Into the FryDaddy until..... they looked like THIS! Chicken wings 3rd way was a simple flour and corn starch dusting, fry, and put into a paper bag with some lemon zest and parmesan. Some grill roasted

Pulled Pork!!!  Need I say more? I've been wanting to do pulled pork for some time now.  I thought that BBQ would be too easy and I wanted to broaden my horizons a bit....Cuban pulled pork sandwiches. Armed with several online recipes I purchased a lot of spices and citrus. Cumin seeds, peppercorns and garden coriander seeds were toasted to release their oils.  The smell was so awesome and when I put them in the spice grinder, it smoked as if it was on fire, and the smell was ultra concentrated.  I then mixed it with course salt and dried oregano. I coated my pork loin, cut into thirds, with this mixture, on all sides. Then I seared all sides of the pork in my Gordon Ramsay saucepan.   FYI-I love my GR pots and pans.  They came with little sacks to keep them all in, which can be used to polish the stainless steel.  I tried to keep them in the sacks, but that didn't last very long. In my crockpot in put orange juice, lime juice and lemon juice plus the carcasses from the fruit.

This shot is homage to my friend Buddy Broyles! Zachary requested steak so I headed to Kroger.  I figured steak, mashed potatoes and a veggie, quick and simple.  While in the produce section my eye caught the pablano peppers.  They looked inviting, so I thought....how could I use this. Instantly, I thought pablano mashed potatoes!!!! First I roasted the pepper on the grill. after seeping in a ziplock for a few minutes, the skin came right off.  I chopped it up very fine and included it within my mashed taters.   Butter, sour cream, milk and queso fresco  crumbles completed this side. That was the first surprise. I marinated the nice large T bone steak with  walnut oil, garlic  and garden oregano and rosemary and cooked it on the grill. The second surprise was the homemade steak sauce.   In my family we all know this as Cousin Mike's Zesty Sauce, and often refer to it as Mike's sauce. This is the most awesome-est steak sauce I've ever had. It's made with butter, ketchup

I bought some deli meat from Costco the other day, and I attempted an antipasto. Salami, pepper salami, coppa and prosciutto, provolone and marinated veggies were the order of the day.  While everything tasted great, the sodium level was through the roof. My whole body craved a large glass of water after we were done. Here is a wide shot of how I plated my cured meat and salt bathed veggies. I used the last of our homemade pickled okras, so at least there was SOMETHING, that I did for this meal, since there was no cooking. Flock fed!

Armed with a suggestion from Dutchie's uncle Jim, I set out to make chicken baked in salsa! I had a jar of salsa left over, but it had sit for a few weeks and therefore had lost most of its luster.  Uncle Jim says that he uses his homemade salsa leftovers to cook chicken.  Thus saving the salsa from being thrown away, since it was at its max shelf life.  That sounded so good that I bought a whole chicken, cut it into quarters and placed it in a baking dish with a whole jar of my homemade salsa. I paired it with asparagus and bulgar wheat with scallions and tomatoes. I was nervous that Zachary wouldn't eat it, cause of the spice, but he loved the chicken, as well as asparagus.  he is not a fan of bulgar wheat, but as always we insist he tries some. This created some absolutely moist chicken with the flavor, but no spiciness, from the salsa. Successful quick and simple meal. It appears that the father continues to feed his flock!

Feeling the heat, I wanted to find a cooling summer recipe, so I went online and found salmon kabobs.  I thought that with some brown rice and a fruit salad would make a great meal. My local Kroger is always hit and miss with seafood, especially salmon.  They had some, but it was not very thick and wouldnt do well on a skewer.  Looking at the options, I saw that the Steelhead trout was looking quite good, and it looks a LOT like salmon. The recipe called for rosemary, but we are had rosemary dumplings the other day, so I went rogue, by using only s/p, olive oil and dried parsley.   Kabobs were very simple tomatoes being the only other inhabitant. 106 degrees outside, even at dinner time here in Texas, so I skipped the grill, and cooked them in my cast iron skillet. Fruit salad was melon-centric, honey do, cantaloup and water were the melons of the day.  I used my new melon baller and created a fun, cool salad that went well with the steelhead.  I went simple on the rice and only added

My first attempt at chicken and dumplings was a success.  Recipe wasn't a traditional one, so I went rogue a bit, it called for bone in chicken breast (not cut up) and it had me remove all solids and thicken the sauce at the end, then pour it over the c&d in a bowl.  I recall the chicken being bite sized and it having a kind of thick soup consistency and it was always ladled out of a dutch oven. So I got boneless breasts and browned them, then in the drippings I cooked carrots, celery, onion and garlic, then added the chicken back.  I then added water and chicken stock.  Dumplings were easy...flour, rosemary, baking powder, salt and water, then just plop down in tablespoon sized bites.  Once it was cooked, I removed the chicken, veggies and dumplings and added some thickener (flour & corn starch), and brought it to a quick boil.  Then I added some frozen peas when I put everything else back in the dutch oven and viola!!! I ended up cutting the chicken into manageable chunk